Brighton: Not Just That Store In The Mall With All The Things With Hearts On Them

Elliot in the kitchen the first morning looked at me and said you just seem so content all the time.

Monday I rode a bus down to Brighton and stayed two days. It was supposed to be only one day, but I think a trend has started here. Things want to extend, I can only let them. Brighton is on the English Channel. Sounds like a series on British television. When I arrived, I walked down the Pier, which was like a small-scale version of the boardwalk at Ocean City--rides, greasy food--except a pier. And not as many Russians. Or people in general, really, but it's the off-season already. The beach in Brighton has no sand. It is made of stones and shells, small and smooth. I picked one up with a groove that fit my finger perfectly. I sat on the stones and it was a little like sitting on one of those things they always have in the nature and science store, a million metal pins that mold to your face or hand and feel really good. Remember those? I sat there for a long time. And maybe took a little nap there. Surprise.

I told Elliot I would be the one with the backpack. He said he is the one with the colorful van.

He drove me to the house where he lives with a bunch of other guys--I still don't know how many of them actually lived there. A guy named Virgile from Provence was also surfing there. He loves Django Reinhardt and plays guitar beautifully, especially this old classic french song Il n'y a pas d'Amour Heureux, there is no happy love. He was very funny, and his English was very funny. We made pasta and meatballs on night two. Elliot is also a really talented musician, with an insatiable taste for reggae beats. These two played together and it was so cool. They tried to get me to play accordion. I played the egg. Actually I didn't. But I drew a picture.

Another good thing that happened was we had a barbeque, though it was not as delicious as some other barbeques I know.

Here is Elliot with his pet snake:
Does he not look like cousin Brandt? I don't remember the name of the Snake. Maybe Martabelle or something. Or Brock. I slept in the room where the two snakes live. I did not carry any little mic in my pockets, and we got along famously.

Brighton supposedly has this wonderful pedestrian area called The Lanes, which I hear has very wonderful and singular shopping that isn't really shopping. I have no iea what this means, but this might be because I never went there. In fact, I didn't really go anywhere in Brighton after getting to Elliot's. We drank tea and watched movies on the couch all day. Purest couch surfing, I'd say.

Though I did go for a walk in the gloaming (a word that nearly knocked us dead when Virgile, who couldn't think of the word for couteau, pulled it out of nowhere) on the second day with Virgile and one of Elliot's flatmates. We walked up into the hills near the house to see if we could see the water, and find blackberries. The channel was hidden by another hill, though the view was still wonderful. The blackberries were hidden by not existing.

But we did find a horse to talk to.